Luminous Arena ruined HCE for me :-P

You can call me a wuss or tell me I need to work on my reflexes, but...

When the entire floor is covered with whirly blades that insta-kill my Forcefield-tank Engineer who does just fine against monsters, it ****. It kind of ruined **** for me.

If there wasn't that one instant-death spot, I'd be fine with the Luminous Arena. The spotlight, spikes and monster fights are challenging but they're doable.

But after that death, never again. I'm sticking with softcore.

Be warned, would-be **** players. It's not worth it to die in that one BS level. (Well, the one BS part of an otherwise-cool level). Stick with softcore unless you are very practiced with that blade trap gauntlet and can run it unscathed with a blindfold on.

Survived Luminous Arena on HCE Solo with a mage today, every single slot filled with +HP gems. Got overloaded by mobs and thought I was done for, only to ding Level 41 and all of a sudden was at full health.

Then 10min later I died in the Witherways, went from full health to 5% in no time (are there pillars of fire there?) and couldn't teleport away quickly enough. Oops. Next up maybe a Berserker.

You can call me a wuss or tell me I need to work on my reflexes, but...

When the entire floor is covered with whirly blades that insta-kill my Forcefield-tank Engineer who does just fine against monsters, it ****. It kind of ruined **** for me.

If there wasn't that one instant-death spot, I'd be fine with the Luminous Arena. The spotlight, spikes and monster fights are challenging but they're doable.

But after that death, never again. I'm sticking with softcore.

Be warned, would-be **** players. It's not worth it to die in that one BS level. (Well, the one BS part of an otherwise-cool level). Stick with softcore unless you are very practiced with that blade trap gauntlet and can run it unscathed with a blindfold on.

I have played a while HCE too, but just to try a new feature. I think HCE it's only for people who is able to avoid EVERY SINGLE **** on screen. If you can't do that or if you don't like that, HCE isn't for you. Even with tons of gear and HP gems, one-shot is around every corner.
It's not a matter of RPG skill, it's a matter of 80's arcade game skill. Avoid everything it's not a nice mechanic in my hopinion. It's just oldskool. In a game like Diablo 3, you don't need to be an iron man, even with a pure dps class. You have to understand your class skill and capabilities. Sure you have to avoid things, but you can use cooldowns and globes, and this makes the game more tactic then TL2.
I suggest to try Torchfun mod, it has few new potions very useful for HC, and a +50% base health buff that can helps a lot to avoid one-shot.

HCE unmodified is really only for multi-player types or those with massive amounts of gear or willing to dupe gear. Or I guess you can have massive skills that I don't.

When I come back to TL2 it'll be Veteran Softcore, just for fun. I'm done with farming gear for hours only to die due to the character running the wrong way (too big hit box for monsters sometimes) after clicking on a mob accidentally while trying to run away, or from a getting caught up too easily by some Basilisks, or from the Luminous Arena. Yep, TL2 beat me and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

1. Run a character through the default campaign at a lower level of difficulty. Don't worry about your death count. Establish him at Mapworks, and do NOT advance him to an NG campaign.
2. Return that character to the genie. Replay the Luminous Arena until you learn the patterns of the blades. Correct me if I'm wrong: Blade damage varies with difficulty level, but patterns do not. 8-)